Reality Flux: Armored Core and Bolo
by Shadow's Forge
Summary: Reality Flux! The Armored Cores, the epitome of one universes war machines, have a very close encounter with a Bolo Planetary Interdictor Unit. Bring on the Hellbores.
1. Notes

**_REALITY FLUX: ARMORED CORE AND BOLO_**

By

Gregory P. Wong

* * *

**Notes & Dramatis Personae**

* * *

To those curious about the "Reality Flux" event, it's a quantum anomaly that occurs in as-yet unfinished indepedent novel I'm working on. Of course, the origins of the Reality Flux are not entirely relevant to the story, just that it _does_ happen.

Bolos are gigantic, heavily armed, sentient armored fighting machines, created by Keith Laumer.

Armored Cores are large, usually-humanoid war-machines of a possible near future, the titular units of the Agetec games.

* * *

**Bolo XXXIV (Exultant)**

Length: 90 meters Width: 35-55 meters  
Height: 25 meters  
Tracks: 8 units  
Roadwheel height: 5 meters  
Mass: 28,000 tons  
Road/Road sprint/Contra-gravity sprint speed (kph): 105/200/500

Primary Armaments  
2 200cm Thermonuclear-Plasma Hellbores (5 megaton/second; 3 second cooldown)  
2 Plasma-Flux Hellrails (90 megatons/bolt; 1 minute cooldown)

Secondary Armaments  
12 20cm Hellbore Infinite Repeaters (0.45 megatons/second; 1.5 second cooldown)  
8 40cm Breech-Loading Mortars (yield varies; 5 second cooldown)  
Heavy 40-cell VLS system (yield varies; cooldown varies)

Tertiary Armaments  
Integrated Laser Anti-Personnel System (25 megajoule/second; 0.10 second cooldown)  
Integrated 50mm Gauss Gun Point-Defense System (yield varies; 0.01 cooldown)  
Integrated 155mm Railgun Close-In Weapon System (yield varies; 0.10 second cooldown)

Indirect fire capability: Strategic  
(Tactical indirect fire, in general, is only used on a limited battlefield; theater is used over a much larger span, such as continentally; strategic indirect fire can be used globally)

* * *

**United Nations Armed Forces**

United Nations Mechanized Strike 83rd Battalion

Major Keira Sanchez/AC Nike (Medium humanoid; Overboost; Command)  
2-gigawatt heavy laser rifle, 75mm machine gun, medium missile pack, 2.75-gigawatt light plasma cannon; light laser blade

Captain Alex Hanson/AC Monolith (Heavy humanoid; Exceed Orbit; Heavy Assault)  
95mm machine gun, 55cm shield, heavy missile pack, 8-gigawatt heavy laser cannon; 106mm handgun, 1.5-gigawatt EOs

Lieutenant Joanna Nikambuto/AC Animus (Medium humanoid; Exceed Orbit; Assault)  
50mm rifle, 160mm shotgun, heavy micromissile pack, 70cm heavy rockets; heavy laser blade, 500-megawatt EOs

Lieutenant Nathan Wilkes/AC Grand Hammer (Heavy tank; Overboost; Mobile Fire Support)  
95mm machine gun, 425mm howitzer, heavy VLS missile pack (augmented), 127cm grenade cannon

Lieutenant Sadaara Garab/AC Scorpion (Heavy quadruped; Exceed Orbit; Close-in Support)  
Twin arm-mounted 106mm machine guns, heavy VLS missile pack (augmented), 170mm railgun; 500-megawatt EOs

Captain Alena Yeung/AC Red Flash (Light hover; Overboost; Fast-Response)  
750-megawatt heavy pulse rifle, heavy laser blade, 255mm light rocket pack, medium missile pack; AT mines

Lieutenant Wade Gurney/AC Helios (Heavy reverse joint; Overboost; Aerial Assault)  
65mm rifle, 500-megawatt medium pulse rifle, medium missile pack, 300mm medium rocket pack; 75mm machine gun

Lieutenant Nasuke Tobakimi/AC Phantom (Light humanoid; Overboost; Sniper/Scout)  
170mm sniper rifle, 75mm handgun, light missile pack, 5-megawatt light orbital pods; ECM pods

* * *

**Hired Ravens**

Asmodeus (AC Perdition; medium humanoid)  
Stretch (AC Wily Rocket, medium reverse-joint)  
Wipeout (AC Gearhead; light reverse-joint)  
Argus (AC Spartacus; heavy tank)  
Calico (AC Argento; heavy tank)  
Trailer (AC Rustbucket; medium humanoid)


	2. Part I: Power Tools

**_REALITY FLUX: ARMORED CORE AND BOLO_**

By

Gregory P. Wong

* * *

_The quantum anomaly that cast Victor Sherriton into different times and different realities was not just limited to his own universe. Rifts in space-time opened up in countless other places, sucking away denizens of one universe and depositing them in a different one. Fortunately for the involuntary travelers, the rifts were unlike Sherriton's unique anomaly in that they were short-lived. The individuals sucked into the event horizons were returned spontaneously after some time. _

_Yet, time was still spent in an alien continuity..._

* * *

**Part One: Power Tools**

Input detected (Bolo Command Center)

Bolo Survival Center… Online

Operation: Begin start-up

Operation: Run full internal diagnostic

Internal diagnostic complete (0.361 seconds)... Systems at 99.998 optimum

Operation: Continue with activation process

Master record... Booted

Polymorphic arrays... Online

Yes/No/Maybe trinary logic... Running

Memory Banks... Open

Bolo Personality Center… Online

_Hyperheuristic software... Active_

_Unit entering Combat Readiness Status... Now_

_I awaken._

_I am Unit 7195-BTN of the Dinochrome Brigade, Bethany to my human comrades, and I am Bolo. Specifically, I am a Mark XXXIII...XXXIV...XXXIII...XXXIV..._

_Error Detected. My identity nodes are feeding me two conflicting identification signals._

_I am alarmed, thoroughly alarmed. To not know one's true identity shakes one to one's own core, and, as a sentient entity, I am not exempt._

_I again query my memory nodes, and again I receive conflicting identifications. Both seem to be equally valid, and my logic routines cannot circumvent the conflict._

_Have I gone senile, or mad? While the number of times of a confirmed "Rogue Bolo" has occurred can be counted on a single human hand, improbability can be no comfort to one so afflicted. I can be one of those Bolos who have..._

_I cease that line of thought. I am not senile, or insane. My self-diagnostics tell me my mind is in perfect working order… save for the troublesome identity errors._

_I access my memory banks, taking note of the most recent entries. They will give me answers. In my newly-awaken states, my sluggish thought processes did not catch this rather simple solution._

_I am Unit 7195-BTN of the Line, a Mark XXXIII Planetary Siege Bolo serving on the Melconian Front. My Commander is Lieutenant Colonel Gracie Sherwin. My planet of station is Ralston._

_The fighting across this planet has been heavy, with Melconian _Surturs_ and _Fenrises_ laying siege to this very world... and its human population. Operation Ragnarok has sparked a horrendous, genocidal war, where humans burn Melconian worlds to ashes and they do the same to us._

_Here, on Ralston, a heavy assault force of Melconians has initiated their version of Ragnarok, and two of Ralston's major cities are fused wrecks. My brother and sisters fight to prevent total destruction of this world's human population, though we know the feat might be impossible. The enemy numbers too many, and a beaten force of only four Mark XXXIIIs cannot hold them._

_But we will try. We are Bolos._

_Finally, after a week of heavy fighting, it begins to end. My three comrades burned to glowing hulks beside me, I engage the last four _Surtur_ heavy combat units. The last cities of Ralston have been completely destroyed by orbital nuclear bombardment before I could destroy the murderous Melconian dreadnoughts with my mighty 200cm Hellbores._

_I have nothing to defend any longer. My commander is the only surviving human on this scorched world. I cry in rage and grief over the million of slaughtered humans, but I do no allow it to cloud my mind._

_I strike. And strike again. And again. And again._

_And again._

_And one last time._

_Yet, I am not the only one striking._

_The Melconian version of a Hellbore rips into my massive, 32,000 ton body, right where the constant warfare has gouged out a hole in my tough durachrome armor._

_I detect a hull breach, and to my horror, I realize that the bolt of nuclear force has penetrated my Command Center, where Colonel Sherwin was seated._

_Yet, my shock and sorrow is short lived. Even as my Hellbores tear the _Surtur_ to shreds, the pain screaming from my tortured, catastrophically damaged chassis send my consciousness retreating into my Bolo Survival Center. The last thoughts I experience are those of wrenching grief and shame at having failed my duty to protect this world from Melconian murder._

_And then all goes dark, and my memory banks are finished._

_I am being hailed by an entity using Brigade protocols._

_I decide to answer the communications link, but because of my lack of knowledge, I keep my firewalls and security protocols at high alert._

"_Greetings sister," a male-gendered, electronic "voice" transmits into my systems._

"_I know not if you are truly a brother or not," I transmit back. "Identify yourself."_

_The reply comes back in a flash. "I am Planetary Interdictor Bolo Mark XXXIV 1072-JRD of the Line. I serve the New Dinochrome Brigade, as part of the Esperanza Defense Command."_

_I immediately feel suspicion. "My records do not tell of a Mark XXXIV Bolo of your identification, nor does your unit of attachment exist."_

"_They would not, since my creation came a several decades after your most recent memories."_

_I consult my internal chronometer. I am astounded to discover that 123.08 years have passed since my last recalled moment. JRD speaks the truth, it seems._

_I again open the link to Unit JRD. "I am a Mark XXXIII Bolo, yet I have internal conflicts telling me that I am Mark XIV."_

"_Activate your sensors, sister," JRD says to me, and closes the link._

_I do so. Next to me is a massive war machine. Another Bolo. Quick scans of armament, shape, energy emissions and gravitonic disruption tells me that this is a Bolo Mark XXXIV. Strange, I do not feel larger._

_As a Mark XXXIII, I am over one hundred-twenty meters in length, while the schematics of the prototype Mark XXXIVs have them at ninety meters. I should feel _large_ compared to this other unit, yet I do not._

_I turn my sensors on myself._

_If I were a human, my jaw would have dropped._

_I am now inhabiting the chassis of a new Mark XXXIV _Exultant-_type Bolo! One of my massive 200cm Hellbores has been deleted, along with my four 240cm howitzers and a pair of my 20cm infinite repeaters. However, I have gained two powerful plasma-flux Hellrail cannons, while my mortars, VLS missile system, and point defense networks remain the same._

_I open a link to JRD. "What has happened to me?" I inquire._

"_One of our expeditionary vessels discovered your hulk on the devastated world of Ralston. The ship's sensors detected that a flicker of energy was still running through your central psychotronic networks, and Unit KRN advised them to extract you, somehow. However, so fiercely damaged was your original chassis—and radioactive, as well—that the captain of the vessel only extracted your memory core and processor."_

"_I see," I respond. "I find the new body to be satisfactory, though I will take some time to become acclimated to my new form._

_Such is my fate, I suppose. I am not granted death beside my comrades, but rather a new chance to serve humanity once again._

_I receive another hail, one that also uses proper protocols. Not JRD, I wonder who it can be. I open a link._

"_Hello, BTN, it is good to see that you are well."_

_I query about this new speaker's identity._

"_I am Bolo-Derived Unit 0001-KRN," the voice answers._

_I am unaware of a "Bolo-Derived Unit" class. I query this._

"_Like you, BTN, I also lost my original body. Now, I am the very mind that assists and coordinates the defense assists of Esperanza. In effect, my chassis _is_ the capital city of Kilthwani. Much can be done even without a Mark XXXIII chassis."_

_I note the wisomd in that statement and signal an affirmative._

_Both JRD and KRN request to upload a Verified Situation Report to me. I agree, and they transmit update packets to me, amassing some four terabytes._

_I am amazed yet again._

_Here, on Esperanza, Melconians and humans have found peace. No, more than a peace, an _alliance_. Unit JRD participates in electronic wargames with the new Melconian _Garms_ and _Skolls_, upgraded versions of my nemeses, the _Surturs_ and _Fenrises_. Their cybernetics enhanced by human knowledge, they are as intelligent as any high-end Bolo, and they serve their roles as advance scouts and fast-response assets well. I read about an invasion that occurred not five years ago, and the teamwork between human and Melconian was astounding._

_I have much to learn._

* * *

_I have oriented myself to this new world over the past 5.29 days. In that time, I have studied my new body extensively. It is a bit lighter than my old form, and a bit more maneuverable, thought road speed and sprint speed are about the same._

_The deletion of a 200cm Hellbore and my howitzers lighten my assault capabilities, but in place of those I have my twin Hellrails, 60-meter long weapons that fire bolts of nuclear force. These, along with my main Hellbores, make my anti-starship capabilities superb. In fact, the 90-megaton Hellrail bolts can strike targets on Esperanza's moons._

_With schematics and all other duty-based functions out of the way, I am allowed to think for a moment, something a Bolo does not usually have the time for, which is saying much, considering out nanosecond reaction speeds and psychotronic brains._

_Before my failure at Ralston, I was an integral part of bringing Operation Ragnarok to three Melconian worlds. At the time, I reveled in the destruction of Melconian battle units and took great pleasure in the razing of Melconian cities and the slaughter of Melconian civilians. I can relive every minute of it._

_I see now that I have been mad, mad with the bloodlust the humans had called for, the insanity that had been ordered. I am built for war to ensure peace, yet what I had been ordered to do had been far too much. I am fiercely glad that the madness has been ended._

_I receive a call from the ECD command. "Bethany, we are ready to being maneuvers."_

_I acknowledge, and feed power to my drive trains. KRN, JRD, and several Melconian mech units have scheduled this exercise with the standard EDF forces. It was mock battle, but one that my sophisticated systems can interpret as real. I—_

_Anomaly detected!_

_My visual-light sensors focus on a spot above my main turret. It is a massive ball of chaotic quantum particles and energy that resembles roiling, white fire. I remember, from an unload, that this was some sort of gate used by an invading army to attack Esperanza._

"_BTN!" I head JRD transmit urgently "You must evade it at once!"_

"_Acknolwedged," I reply._

_I feed power to my drives, but I calculate that I will not be able—_

_And then my world explodes into white._

* * *

"Sir?" Major Keira Sanchez, of the United Nations Mechanized Strike, asked incredulously. Bad enough that it was two in the morning, worse that they were investigating a... a... 

"I know, Major, I know. It sounds like a big UFO hunt," the general said.

"Yes, sir."

She watched the man rub his forehead. "So, Major, for the details. Around an hour ago, some type of energy discharge was detected in this region." The general pointed to a baked, lifeless region in the middle of the African continent.

In the "Crazy Years" following the immense nuclear war that was World War III, humanity had been driven down below the surface of Earth, where corporate entities had ruled over the people. Although, if she remembered correctly, there was an AI master program—the Controller, was it called?—keeping tabs. Eventually, an uprising led by a Raven—a mercenary from a group of mercenaries—had let humanity back out on the surface.

It was pretty much touch-and-go from there, with the corporations trying to snap up as much territory was they could and damn the consequences. Well, the consequences had come back to nip them in their collective butts, with devastating results: The Silent Line Barrier, The IBIS Assault, the Pulverizer Crisis, and the Last Raven War.

Things had pretty much collapsed at that point, leading to a half-dozen years of warfare until a reconstituted United States had reestablished the United Nations Council.

Things had been pretty good so far, ignoring, of course, an invasion by the alien Kradeon that had occurred a bare four years ago. Thankfully, the aliens had been kicked off Earth, and things were almost back to normal.

Almost.

"The Wastelands, sir? Could it be reactivated Pulverizers?"

Even after the thirty-seven years humankind has been back above the surface there were still plenty of regions that had yet to be explored thoroughly. Plus, Africa was still a bombed out area, with radioactivity levels that would keep colonies from being established in the heartland for at least ten more years.

"I don't think so, Major. Our orbital defense platforms scan for those type of signatures, and would have glassed the area if one had been found. No, I think this might be something different. Ancient technology, maybe. No, most likely."

"Understood, sir. When should my battalion get moving?

"As soon as possible, Major, since you're the only experience unit we have available. I'd rather not let some tech fall into the hands of an entity like Kisaragi, or, Lord help us, Mirage."

She nodded. Though they were weakened a great deal power-wise, the Corporations still wielded immense influence. A tech boost might lead to a takeover. These were still dangerous years, after all.

"So, Major," the general continued handing her a data disk, which most likely contained further information on the mission, "Get in the air by 0700."

"Roger."

* * *

"Oh, you're _kidding_ me, right?" Keira asked in annoyance. Perfect, just perfect! The mission hadn't even officially started, and already there were complications. Well, same ol' in the life of a military woman, eh? 

She and the rest of her eight-person Armored Core 83rd battalion was aboard a convoy of four Skylifter heavy transports. They were on their way to the Wastelands, equipment and all.

"Nope, Major. I'm serious," her Executive Officer (XO), Captain Alexander Hanson, replied.

"How serious?"

"As a heart attack."

"Damn." She leaned back in her seat and massaged her forehead. "Any chance we can overtake them?"

"None, ma'am. We're at least an hour behind them, and that doesn't count the fact that Corp' transports are faster than ours."

She cursed. Damn Corporation! Crest had hired a Raven squadron—"Last Raven War" had been a bit of a misnomer—to investigate it themselves. To make matters worse, they'd deployed earlier than _she_ had. If the Ravens tried to make off with whatever the energy signature was, it might come down to a firefight. Her people were good, very good, but Ravens weren't known for being bad.

Dammit.

"So, what can we do, Alex?"

"We can send a flight of Spyeye probes ahead of us on missiles, but we won't be able to do more than watch what happens."

"Hell, that's all we _can_ do right now: watch. Do it."

* * *

Reboot... 

Initiate Bootstrap Recovery system

Online.

_I awaken abruptly._

_I immediately run diagnostics. I have been "out" for over nine hours, a shockingly long time blank-spot for a Bolo unit. Despite this, everything checks out fine. I am still in prime working order. But where am I? I can sense no hails from JRD, KRN, or the Melconian mechs._

_I activate sensors, finding myself in an arid, lifeless plain of baked mud and rocky hills. Where am I?_

_I scan for any technological presences, and I find a half dozen missiles closing in on me! I react, initiating a high-intensity, 0.0082 second scan on the signatures. They are not fitted with warheads, but rather some type of drone unit. No threat. I detect other contacts, and a similar scan indicates that they _are _weapon-grade signatures. However, I have 33.02 and 52.02I minutes, respectively, before they come within ten kilometers of me. I can wait for another few seconds._

_I extend my gaze upward, and am delighted to find several satellites orbiting above me. I probe them gently. Interesting. They are not EDC or EDF satellites. I carefully hack into their systems and read their input._

_Astounding! Long neglected geographic maps find a match! There is some discrepancy due to continental drift, but I recognize the area I am in as Africa, from old Earth. I delve deeper into the satellite databases and fire further evidence that I am, indeed, on Earth._

_Did that quantum gate, the ball of "fire", transport me as it did the alien invaders those five years ago? It seems the only way, since being transported over several light years in the space of ten hours is utterly impossible via direct-flight methods. Perhaps some quantum gate?_

_Farther out, the three transports detected, most likely helicopter-types, seem to be lifting a half-dozen high-energy signatures. Those _do_ have detectable weapon systems. Both sets of signatures will be in my engagement envelope soon, but I cannot fire upon them. Not knowing the situation of this planet, I do not want to risk calling the ire of an entire world upon me. I will wait and observe events as they unfold._

* * *

"The bloody hell is _that_?" Keira heard Lieutenant Wade Gurney, pilot of AC _Helios_ and Aerial Assault specialist, blurt over the comm. 

"It... it looks like a humongous tank!" This from Captain Alena Yeung, of AC _Red Flash_ and the 83rd's Fast-Response specialist.

"This is going to be a giant monkey wrench, huh?" she muttered to herself. She keyed her wristcomm and buzzed the transport's pilot. "ETA before we make drop?"

"Looks like thirty-five, ma'am."

"Thanks." She fiddled with her wristcomm again and tuned it to the battalion frequency. "83rd, time to mount up. Get into your cockpits and begin fission reactor standby. Low energy state until we hit ETA five minutes." She turned to Hanson. "How much longer until the mercs enter weapon range?"

"About twenty."

* * *

_I watch as a half-dozen mechanoids of some sort detach from the transports and descend to the ground. I detect that all six units have a rather substantial booster/drop-jet system._

_I scan. The units average from twelve to twenty meters in height, with the majority of the units hovering around sixteen. I assess mass to be anywhere from 200 to 375 tons, a mere pittance compared to my twenty-eight thousand ton bulk. However, mass itself cannot be the end-all factor for determining fighting ability. In fact, their bipedal stance and light weight mirrors the design used by a hostile alien species that humanity encountered during the Human-Melconian War, the Malach. The Malach Hunters were ten-meter-tall, reverse-joint, dual-purpose mechanoids that proved to be a worthy opponents to a pair of XXIV Bolos that had been stationed on the invaded world._

_These mechanoids are, on average, larger and heavier than the Hunters, and their designs vary, while the Malach utilized a single design. I am unsure of their fighting potential, though, drawing inferences from the satellite technology above me, I can hypothesize that they will not have Hellbore-equivalent technology._

_I consider launching a specialty missile to spread Battlefield Intelligence and Surveillance Transmission drones over the area above me, but I decide against it. That might be interpreted as a hostile action._

_The six mechanoids began to advance on me from 103.601 kilometers out, some traveling on the ground, others in the sky. I can lock them up with my targeting systems, but, again, that will be interpreted as hostile. I will allow them the first move._

* * *

Jacob "Asmodeus" Wilkins, pilot of AC _Perdition_, wondered that the hell that big _thing_ was. It didn't look like any Armored Core or Muscle Tracer he'd encountered. 

"So, what's the plan, 'boss'?" he heard Stretch ask disparagingly over the comm.

He curled his upper lip. Bad enough he had to share his paycheck with these mooks, even worse that they were all idiots. Or arseholes.

Ever since an... incident involving napalm, a UN MT company, and a town in South America, he'd had hard time being hired. Political correctedness and all that horsecrap. Most clients, including the Corporations, didn't want anything to do with a "butcher".

Buncha dicks, that they were. It wasn't like they hadn't endorsed the torching of those jungle rats. Plus it was funny to watch brats running around, on fire. Double-talking, two-faced executives. Seriously, though, who cared? He was a _merc_, for God's sake. He did what he was paid to do. Sure, there were the Ravens who took the moral high ground and didn't do "_questionable_ _missions_", but he wrote them off as pansies.

Anyway, Crest was desperate enough to hire his highly-skilled but unscrupulous derriere to isolate and contain this new "energy signature" thing. The only catch was that he had to share with these other Ravens, who, like him, had a hard time finding work because of, ah, _stuff_.

Stretch, for example, had raided a colony's resources so as to discredit the client's rival. Wipeout had attacked a medical convoy, also to discredit a rival, while Argus had a run-in with a UN AC unit.

Crest must be _damn_ desperate to get a hold of that signature.

He sent a neural command via his headset and ordered a radar scan of the target. Hmm... looked pretty sturdy, and energy readings were off the chats. Dimensions were ridiculous too: it was at _least_ ninety meters long, fifty-five at its widest, and twenty-five high. It wasn't a tank, it was a frigging _mountain_.

Oh, well.

First things first. He sent a transmission to the tank-thing.

"Yo, anyone in there? Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

He waited. Hmm, nothing. Maybe if he got Stretch to bombard it—

"This is Unit 7195-BTN. Identify yourselves," came a strong soprano.

Ooh! That voice brought back good memories. Once, Kisaragi had hired him to elimate down a "spy" who was escaping on an MT. The briefing files he'd been shown told him the spy was female and decisively attractive, so he took it upon himself to get a little "bonus", since Kisaragi gave piss-poor rates. So, anyway, he'd blown the legs off the MT with rockets, torched the cockpit until the broad popped out—he loved flamethrowers—and begged to be spared.

He'd kindly relented, dismounted from his AC... and then tied her up and had his way with her. After fifteen minute's fun—fun that included matches, pliers, and some acid—he'd taken his combat knife and gutted her. Good stuff.

What he remembered most, though, was the chick's voice. Not girly-girl, not battleaxe, but right in between, maybe a little to the girly side. Coulda been super sexy if she hadn't been cowering in fear. Oh well.

Now here was another possible toy, and the voice sounded almost he same, too! Maybe he could score another "bonus". He deserved it, after putting up with these five idiots.

"All right, then, sweetheart. Kindly power down your overgrown tank and come on out. Promise I won't hurt ya." He made sure not to add "for too long."

"_Identify yourself_."

Oh, so the broad was gonna play hard to get, huh? "Listen, lady, I'm a Raven. Name's Asmodeus, and I pilot AC _Perdition_, which you probably heard of if you've been following the arena rankings."

Pause. Then...

"Very well, Raven Asmodeus. However, I cannot comply with your order. I would like to speak with a higher authority, please."

Good God...

"Listen, you idiot, you either get out of there right this _fisking_ instant, or I melt my way through your tank and drag you out. And it won't be fun if I do that."

That part was definitely true. There was a reason why he liked napalm and flamethrowers, of course. Nothing beat the sound of agonized screams as he boiled pilots in their own cockpits. And since his medium-humanoid AC was fast and well armored, he had the maneuvers to do just that. It was like a bastardized lobster cook.

"I cannot 'leave the tank'," the woman said.

Oh, fisking... "Okay, that's it, I'm gonna torch that large metal carcass, and then I'll—"

"Raven Asmodeus, I cannot leave the tank," the woman said, "because I _am_ the tank."

* * *

_I identified the six mechanoids even before I opened the voice transmission with Asmodeus._

_They are "Armored Cores" _Perdition, Gearhead, Argento, Wily Rocket, Rustbucket_, and _Spartacus_, piloted by Ravens Asmodeus, Wipeout, Argus, Stretch, Trailer, and Calico, which I assume to be aliases. I hacked into their onboard databanks and found information on who these individuals are._

_They are a mercenary group hired to contain me, and I am utterly appalled._

_These are no soldiers, they are barbarians who know nothing of honor and duty. More disgustingly, Asmodeus, pilot of Perdition, has a record of sadistic incidences and actions that would, under Esperanza law, be considered crimes against humanity. He is skilled, as "Arena rankings" tell me, but he is not one of the top Ravens._

_Lacking data telling me otherwise, I sincerely hope that these are not a representation of Earth's soldiers._

"_An AI, huh?" I hear Asmodeus transmit to me. "Sure, tell me another one."_

"_I am Planetary Interdictor Bolo Mark XXXIV _Exultant_, designation 7195-BTN of the Line. I am a collection of hyperheuristic thought processes on a massively parallel polymorphic array that utilizes molecular virtual psychotronic circuitry. I require no pilot."_

_I hear Asmodeus chuckle. "Yeah, right. Maybe if I had a dictionary as good as yours I might sound more like a techie."_

_The commlink closes, and 2.04 seconds later I am lashed by targeting arrays._

_I detect missile launch! Units _Wily Rocket_ and _Argento_ have each launched salvoes of missiles at me. Quick analysis indicate that the missiles are standard, medium-weight warheads_

_I react. Within 0.007 seconds of launch, I have acquired all missiles on my targeting arrays. Another 0.05 seconds pass, and then I fire with my point-defense gauss guns and laser clusters. The missiles, the closest still a comfortable 11.06 kilometers from me, detonate spectacularly._

_I have been fired upon. Basic programming and protocol dictates that I am free to engage units that have displayed open hostility. However, my higher-thinking strategic thought processes go against this. I still do not possess enough information of Earth's status, and the missile strike may have been an accident, however unlikely that alternative may seem. I would be extremely discomfited if this was a Concordiat or Esperanzan situation, but it is not. It is one that is alien._

_Furthermore, the missile fire was horribly ineffectual against me. I see no need to initiate offensive fire unless the situation escalates. That being said, I cannot allow the enemy to think I am unwilling to defend myself using more direct means._

_I lock the mercenary units up hard with my targeting arrays._

* * *

What the _fisk_!? The fisking tank had just blown away _all_ twenty-four missiles Stretch and Calico had launched at it. Just like that! 

Well, then, time to get serious.

"Nice shooting!" he said mockingly over the comm. "Maybe you _are_ a bot. So, how about this? I come in close to you, you power down your weapons, and I promise not to damage that abomination of a hull... too much."

Silence. Maybe he was getting somewhere—

"Raven Asmodeus, I think not."

"Oh, really? You know what an AC is, tank? We're the top dogs of warfare. Better yet, you know who I am? Now surrender right now or I—"

"No." Now the voice sounded quite a bit colder. "I have stood my ground against dozens of 18,000-ton Melconian _Surturs_. I have dueled orbital dreadnoughts with the power to glass a planet's surface. I have rushed into point-blank nuclear fire to vanquish my enemies. I am a Bolo, and you should think twice about employing idle threats in hopes of cowing me."

Did that tank just say...? It had. That was it. Talking was _over_.

"Move in closer," he growled to the others. "We're ripping this uppity tin can a new one."

He moved in and prepared to activate his Overboost. Maybe if this thing was really a bot, he could scavenge that super-effective anti-missile system, and maybe its fire-control system, too. He needed cash.

"Ravens, halt at once. I have acquired you with my weapon systems, and if you should enter the five-kilometer space around me, I _will_ take action," said the tank.

Yeah, right, he was _really_ going to listen.

He activated his Overboost. He was going to close with the tank while bombarding it with napalm rockets. Once he got within the 175-meter range of his flamethrowers, he was gonna have himself a barbeque.

* * *

At precisely 1318 the Skylifter transport released Keira's AC, _Nike_. 

She tapped a control and her neural-induction suit kicked in. Wired into the AC's systems, the suit gave her incredible control of the AC's movements; in effect, it was almost like her AC _was_ her body, albeit a body that used a 75mm autocannon as a "machine gun".

The altimeter said the ground was... two thousand meters down. She began to pulse her boosters, slowing her descent. Around her, ACs _Monolith_, _Animus_, _Phantom_, _Red Flash_, _Helios_, _Scorpion_, and _Grand Hammer_ did the same.

"Crap, they're moving in," Keira heard Hanson, aboard _Monolith_, say tensely.

She, Hanson, and presumably the others in the battalion, were watching courtesy of the Spyeyes they'd launched. The feed was still coming in loud and clear.

For all the good it was going to do them. If these Ravens were good—Asmodeus was a psychopathic bastard, but he was skilled—they might even be able to make off with the tank-thing before they could get there.

"_HOLY_ _CRAP_!" she heard Lieutenant Nasuke Tobakimi, Sniper/Scout and pilot of AC _Phantom_, yelp.

She looked at the video feed coming in from the Spyeyes. The drones had spaced themselves around the mountain of metal, and were giving quite a few good angles. Views of...

"Holy crap," she whispered.

* * *

_Battle Reflex Mode engaged._

_I lock onto the legs of unit _Gearhead_ and launch a salvo from my infinite repeaters. The powerful 20cm plasma bolts slam into the bird-legged _Gearhead_ and shear off the left leg. Spectrographic scans of the vaporized armor indicate that the Armored Cores are plated with depleted-uranium, carbon sheathing—most likely nanotube-based—and a titanium alloy, similar to old-style Chobham armor. The armor, though no doubt effective for this world's weapons, is utterly insufficient for the firepower of Hellbores._

_No longer able to run forward on a single limb, _Gearhead_ falls to the baked earth and moves about feebly. However, I compute that the fallen unit can right and stabilize itself with its effective thrusters, and can open fire on me while airborne. I probe the fallen Armored Core carefully. Biometric scans indicate that the pilot of the mechanoid resides in the torso area. In its fallen position, I cannot neutralize _Gearhead_'s weapon systems without endangering the pilot. I will wait and see what the pilot does._

_I fire a BIST missile into the air. It detonates, and new senses come alive as thousands of one-centimeter-wide surveillance drones spread over me._

_I detect an energy buildup to my right. I up the power to me drive train to 115 and plough forward, just as a plasma blast in the four-gigawatt range gouges out a large crater behind me. The firing unit, the tank-treaded _Spartacus_, attempts to swivel to track me. The fact that it is moving itself bodily suggests that the shoulder-mounted direct-fire weapons have a limited traverse rate. I will remember that datum, which could prove useful later on. I rapidly reconfigure my ten 40cm mortars to fire in a flat trajectory and volley them, shredding its treads with explosive penetrators._

_I then swerve sharply to the left as a flight of dumb-fired rockets come at me. I bat them down with my gauss guns and lasers, and swivel my infinite repeaters to shoot up at _Rustbucket_, which is raining fire down upon me from above. The humanoid attempts to dance out of the way of my fire, but it will take more than that to throw off relativistic weaponry aimed by machine precision and nanosecond reflexes. My Hellbore bolts rip apart the unit's left arm, and it falters in the air. I keep my fire steady, and this time I shred its leg unit. Smoking, _Rustbucket_ backs away._

_Suddenly a powerful energy bolt washes over me. I was not able to dodge _Sparatcus_' second plasma round fast enough. My shields hold, however, and even divert 35.09 percent of the power to my own capacitors. I use the redirected energy to pulse my Number Seven, Eight, and Nine infinite repeaters into the shoulders of the treaded mechanoid, destroying both arm analogs._

Perdition_ and _Wily Rocket_ have been keeping up a steady indirect-fire bombardment thus far. _Perdition_'s napalm rockets have raised the ambient temperature a great deal, and a near-miss splashed some burning fluid toward my hull. My anti-kinetic battlescreens reacted, however, and the fluid flows off. _Wily Rocket_ is using much smarter missiles, which I have a hard time neutralizing considering the amount of fire I am taking. I can end this in less than 5.33 seconds if I allow myself to inflict hard kills on the Armored Cores—2.01 if I use my main 200cm Hellbores to do so—but I seek to neutralize, not destroy. Their weapons have done only superficial damage thus far, and I see no need for a complete kill. However, considering what these mercenaries have done to their fellow man, I am sorely tempted._

_I slam a volley of flat-trajectory mortar rounds into _Argento_, and the heavy mechanoid staggers, its heavy tread units not able to withstand the force of my munitions._

_Suddenly, a napalm rocket gets past my point-defense screen and splashes directly over my hull. The flaming liquid raises my outer temperature startlingly, and I up the power to my drives, hoping air resistance will blow the fluid from my hull. The napalm is viscous, however, and it resists my attempts to dislodge it. Fortunately, I detect that the mass of napalm will be consumed in 5.091 seconds._

* * *

What the _fisk_ was this thing!? Not only did it have those freakishly powerful weapons, but those weapons were dot-accurate. 

Asmodeus bared his teeth. Goddamn tank. He and Stretch had been keeping back from the main action, pummeling the thing with indirect fire, but his napalm rockets seemed to be doing squat.

Was this thing _impervious_ to damage? Jesus. Maybe if he could close to flamethrower range, he might have a chance at this.

* * *

Gearhead_ is attempted to right itself, using a combination of its humanoid arms, surviving leg, and thrusters. I cannot allow that. I swerve towards the struggling mechanoid and open fire with my point-defense railgun mounts, slamming 105mm long-rod penetrators into tortured metal. It opens fire with an autocannon and a pulsed particle cannon, which I compute to be 65mm and 725-megawatts, respectively. A full dozen of the high explosive autocannon rounds splash against my shields, as well as a trio of particle charges. My battlescreens flicker, but absorb the assault easily. By now, my sustained railgun volley has completely ruined the arms and legs of _Gearhead_, and the Armored Core crashes down to the ground. It is out of the fight, for now._

_I detect that _Argento_ and _Spartacus_ have met up and joined, volleying their fire in dangerous barrages. _Argento_ is utilizing a heavy bore cannon, which I estimate to be around 130cm range, and heavy swarms of missiles, while _Spartacus_ is ripple-firing its plasma cannon and some type of orbiting auxiliary energy guns. The massive cannon shells require me to intercept them with heavy point-defense fire or a burst from my secondary Hellbores, which further complicates my counter-missile defenses as I detonate munitions from _Perdition, Wily Rocket_, and _Rustbucket_, which has reentered the fight._

_A dozen assorted missiles make it past my point-defense web and strike my battlescreens. Intentionally or not, they target a spot on my screens which have taken a near-miss from _Spartacus_' plasma cannon. My shields fail in the area immediately above my Number Six tread unit and three of the missiles batter themselves against my endurachrome plating. The missiles do no more than char the metal._

_Even before the missiles strike me, more mortar rounds rip away the head and arms of _Spartacus_, while my infinite repeaters do the same to _Argento_. Three enemies down._

_I launch a heavy salvo of missiles from my VLS ports, each one an Icehawk anti-armor penetrator. I swat down the rocket and missile from the three Armored Cores, and lash _Rustbucket_ with a barrage from my Hellbore infinite repeaters. I manage to destroy its booster system, and the mechanoid plummets to the ground, where its legs shatter from the impact. I amputate its weapon-wielding arms with surgical blasts from my point-defense systems._

_The missiles I launched home in the remaining enemies, the plasma-lance Icehawks drilling white-hot holes in the limbs of _Wily Rocket_. The bird-legged unit falters in the air, and I down it with a single blast from my Number Three infinite repeater. Most of the weapon systems are crushed in the fall, and I have only to neutralize a hand-gripped autocannon._

_My remaining missiles track _Perdition_, but at the last moment some type of afterburner kicks in, and the mechanoid accelerates to 476 kph in under a second. My missiles slam into the backed earth, harmless._

_I immediately swivel my infinite repeaters and deal a one-two-three volley that blows away a chunk of left leg, rips away the left arm, and smashes a back-mounted rocket pack unit from the Armored Core. I wait for the mechanoid to loop backs towards me, but it does not, instead speeding out into the distance._

_The mercenary Asmodeus has run, abandoning his comrades. I am repelled by such cowardice._

_In any case, this firefight is over. Engagement Elapsed Time is a rather lengthy 32.12 seconds._

* * *

"Our Father, who art in Heaven..." Keira whispered to herself. 

It... no, it couldn't be possible. It _had_ to be impossible.

But it clearly wasn't. She'd watched the "battle" from start to finish, and made special note of the elapsed time. Thirty-two seconds. Thirty-two _seconds_ for six _Ravens_ to get their derrieres handed back to them.

"Battalion, cease forward progress," she ordered. That _thing_ had ripped up a bunch of Ravens like they were nothing. No way in hell was she sending in her group until they found a way to contain that thing.

That, of course, assumed that it _could_ be contained. That thirty seconds of hell shown through the Spyeye drones suggested that eight Armored Cores probably wouldn't even dent the thing.

She still couldn't believe it. Still didn't _want_ to believe it. Six Ravens in Armored Cores... defeated in _half_ a minute? It wasn't possible! Even during the encounters with the juggernaut Muscle Tracers and various Pulverizers, there had never been an engagement that had ever ended that quickly—and that _badly_—for a Raven group.

Never.

Still, they had a mission. If that thing decided to go on a rampage, there were colonies near the shores with populations totaling over five hundred thousand. Action was needed.

She keyed her mic. "_Phantom_, get to a suitable vantage point and keep watch on the tank. Do _not_ acquire the target on your FCS."

"On it," she heard the lieutenant acknowledge. The heavy 170mm sniper rifle—or high-velocity smoothbore cannon for non-AC-sized entities—had a range of over twenty-five kilometers with rocket-assisted, self-forging, anti-tank (RASFAT) shells, and could puncture up to three meters of rolled homogenous armor with high-impact, discarding sabot, fin-stabilized, long-rod penetrators (HIDSFSLRP). The thing was, considering that plasma cannons, missile barrages, heavy grenade cannons, and napalm had _maybe_ charred a bit of armor, she wasn't placing any bets on the sniper weapon doing much damage.

The sniper-configured rifle, because of its nature, was fitted with a complementary sensor package that tripled _Phantom_'s "sight" range in the visual light, infrared, and radar. Tobakimi would be their early warning system.

"_Helios_, _Animus_, _Red Flash_, take up flanking positions, on me."

There was a chorus of affirmatives. The medium—and one light—units were fast and could get out of trouble quickly, if it came. Plus, it was a good covering tactic to have them covering her.

"_Monolith_, _Grand Hammer_, _Scorpion_, take up converging field of fire ten kilometers from the tank. Be prepared to cover us if we need it."

More acknowledgements. Ten kilometers was pushing the boundaries of their weapon ranges, but hopefully, if it came down to shooting, the wall of fire the three heavy ACs could project might mean the difference between life and death.

Against a conventional opponent. The matter was that this giant tank was _nothing_ ever seen before. The precautions she was taking were straight from the Book, because there was noting in her experience that could be applied to this situation... except to be as careful as possible.

And one more thing...

She directed her communication arrays towards space. "This is Mike-Sierra-Eight-Three-Bravo-Tango. Attempting communications with Foxtrot-Charlie-Five-Niner-Three. Come in."

"Mechanized Strike 83rd, this is Fleet Command," replied a drawling voice over the comm. "We read you loud in clear."

"Command, I'm requesting _immediate_ _orbital_ _support_ at coordinates 1413-1039, authentication code Oscar-Five-India-Juliet-Niner-Niner-Three-Seven-One. Condition is Uniform-X-ray-Five. Repeat: situation is _Uniform_-_X-ray_-_Five_."

There was a long pause. Well, understandable, since she'd just invoked one of the highest command-level authentications, and _the_ highest situation threat level. Uniform-X-ray-Five meant an unidentified unit with a Class-five threat level—the highest in the UN designations—was within strategic striking distance of major cities. She knew how fast that tank could move and what destruction it could leave.

"Authentication and situation report confirmed, 83rd. Siege cruisers _Lancaster_ and _Myrmidon_ are beginning maneuvers, ETA one-point-five hours."

"Acknowledged, Command. Breaking contact."

"Affirmative," came the response, and she powered down the array.

Okay, so two _Omaha­_-class siege cruisers were en route. The _Omahas_ mounted batteries of kinetic-kill missile launchers that were used to surgically remove targets from a planet's surface with precise, quasi-nuclear force. They had backup if it came down to shooting. But the ships still needed ninety minutes to get into a viable support position, and waiting that long was inviting trouble. They still had a job to do.

She activated her mic again.

"Advance, one-one-two-three formation Alpha, tight, limited booster," she said into the tactical channel. "Keep active scanners pinging on the tank; we want it to know that we're coming. Unless it fires on us, _do not lock on with FCS_. _Phantom_, you're our early warning system. You see so much as a turret jerk, let us know. Okay, people, stay frosty; this could get really ugly really fast."

* * *

_I detect new signatures coming towards me. As I did with the Ravens, I probe their transponders and come up with identification tags: _Nike, Red Flash, Animus, Helios, Monolith, Grand Hammer, Scorpion_, and, furthest back, _Phantom_. I attempt to basic hack of their databanks, but I am repulsed by their surprisingly intricate firewalls and code-shifting algorithms. I have no doubt that I can break past them, given time, but I refrain from doing so. The protocols I encountered seemed very aware, and, not knowing the full capabilities of this group—or who they represent—I cannot take a risk that an attempted hack will prompt hostilities. I focus my attention to the sensor reads._

_The humanoid, reverse-joint, and tank-tread designs I recognize from the engagement with the six Ravens, but the quadruped and hovering models are new. The four-legged model seems to offer more stability than the other leg models, save the treaded design, but I can only imagine what power requirements those units would take. From its weapon configuration—heavy missile pods, a back-mounted cannon, auxiliary missile packs, and weapons that seem to be an integral part of the arms—I assume that this Armored Core represents a mobile fire or support unit._

_The hovering platform seems the fastest of all the designs, but it looks very likely armored. I theorize that the hovering Armored Core is a skirmisher or fast-attack element, judging from it relatively light weaponry._

_I analyze vectors, and I am surprised to note that the Armored Cores are keeping a tight and organized formation, with the lead humanoid, _Nike_, flanked by three comrades, while the three heavier units break from formation and take up equally spaced positions approximately 9.9801 kilometers from my position, which I can clearly discern to be support positions. _Phantom_ has not moved from its position. The BIST cloud spread high above me indicates that _Phantom_ is a light Armored Core. I calculate an 89.51 probability it to be some sort of spotter or sniper._

_In any case, this tactical thinking—and discipline in movements—give me a 93.89 probability that these new Armored Cores are not piloted by Ravens. As Ravens are mercenaries, they would not have the time—or the desire, I believe—to take teamwork to such a level. These are soldiers._

_Soldiers they may be, but they are still unknown. I have not directly challenged them yet, waiting for their own initiation of contact, but as Armored Core _Nike_ encroaches on the six-kilometer zone I have assigned as a buffer, I will have to make some sort of challenge within the next 11.504 seconds._

_7.09 seconds pass, and I am about to issue a warning, when I am hailed. I backtrack the transmission to Armored Core _Nike_. I open up a channel._

"_This is Major Keira Sanchez of the United Nations Mechanized Strike. You have encroached upon land that has been claimed by the UN. Identify yourself."_

_United Nations? My memory banks tell of such a organization that existed circa the twenty to twenty-first century, yet, the UN wielded no real authority in world events, much less an army, even up until its disbandment as the world fell into chaos. After the "Crazy Years", as they were called, the Concordiat emerged to take control as Earth's ruling body. There were never any years where the UN held interim power, nor did it ever possess the technology to field Armored Cores._

_It is possible that after the Human-Melconian War a government of the same name arose upon Earth, but that would be improbable, since a Melconian strike fleet charred Earth's surface into a radioactive wasteland._

_I cannot come up with a reasonable hypothesis._

_However, I cannot keep the major waiting. My investigation took 1.08 seconds, which shows how detailed it was._

"_Major Sanchez, I am Planetary Interdictor Bolo Mark XXXIV _Exultant_, designation 7195-BTN of the Line."_

_There is a lengthy silence of 9.27 seconds. Then..._

"_I... see..." Sanchez transmits. "We have no records of... Bolos. What is your purpose here?"_

"_Unknown. I was deposited at this approximate location by a quantum anomaly, and I have not moved except to defensively engage a group of mercenaries that attacked me."_

"_Right, the Ravens. We saw the engagement. Bolo, what is your rank?"_

"_As a Unit of the Line, I have no rank." I remember how Asmodeus had been ignorant of my nature, and I have no reason to believe that Major Sanchez will know any better. "Major, I _am_ the unit that you see before you. I _am_ the tank."_

_There is a lengthy pause. "AI?"_

"_Yes, I am an AI. Specifically, I am a collection of hyperheuristic thought processes on a massively parallel polymorphic array that utilizes molecular virtual psychotronic circuitry."_

_Yet another pause. "Bolo... BTN, who built you?"_

"_My original chassis and my current one were designed by the Concordiat of Earth, while this body that you see before you was built by the planetary government of Esperanza."_

"Planetary_ government? We barely have inter-system space travel. How...?"_

"_Major, if I may, let me explain." I devote 0.004 seconds to a quick decision. "Also, I believe you may call me 'Bethany'."_

"_Go on, er... Bethany."_

"_Yes, Major. Scientific theory has moved in leaps and bounds ever since this time, and scientists have hypothesized about the existence of very real alternate universes..."_

* * *

Asmodeus panted as he tried to get himself out of the broken-down hulk that had once been AC _Perdition_. 

After that... that... _thing_ had destroyed his group, he'd fed all available power to his Overboost and gotten his poor, torn up ass out of there at full speed. Hell, he'd fed so much power and kept the OB running for so long, he'd pretty much burned out the unit. To compound things, the prolonged, hellish thrust from the Overboost had redlined his structural temperature, and the AC had to shut down to cool itself off.

So, here he was, out in the middle of a radioactive African plain, with an AC that was inoperable.

But at least he'd gotten away.

The _Bolo_... it wasn't a war machine. It was a force if _nature_. He'd long stopped believing in any God, but after today... he began to believe that if a true God didn't exist, something with a spirit of vengeance _did_.

He jumped down from the slumping Core—fisking thing was still hot enough to raise blisters on his bare skin when it touched—and collapsed to the ground.

Fisking thing... fisking, fisking _thing_.

He sat down on the baked mud. And—

"The _hell_!?" he shrieked. He leaped to his feet and looked behind him.

Something was there. It was sticking out of the ground, metallic, and it looked like a small, two-meter high tower. A camera mounted on the top focused on him. Huh? How'd he miss that?

Oh, now that he looked around... yeah. His AC was such a heap of scrap metal that he hadn't noticed a piece that _didn_'_t_ belong.

"Identification positive," the thing buzzed in a monotone. "Human identified. Data: humans have encroached into Sector Omicron. Human possesses mechanoid-weapon Armored Core. Human and Armored Core have suffered battle damage. Hypothesis: Human infection has spread. Action: activate IBIS Directive 84.3."

He was shocked. Well, semi-shocked. After today, a talking tower of metal wasn't the worst thing he'd seen.

"Whoa, whoa, who the hell are you?"

"Clearance is not granted. You are Human. You are subject to Directive 84.3"

"The hell is the Directive thing?"

"IBIS Directive 84.3 is the activation of all units held within Installations Omicron and Sigma. Activated units are to carry out the extermination of all detectable Human life."

Detectable human life? But that included... him. Oh, crap.

"Wait, hold on!"

"Negative. Directive 84.3 must be executed immediately. Humans are a threat. Human are stripping this planet of all available resources. Humans act as dangerous animals in how they slaughter one another. Humanity's threat must be eliminated. Searching records... identified. You are Jacob Wilkins, Raven. You are an example of humanity's depravity."

Suddenly, laughing at napalmed children and raping women didn't seem so fun all of a sudden.

"No, wait! Let's talk about this!"

He watched as a thing that looked a lot like a small machine gun popped out of a port on the metal tower.

"Negative," the buzzing voice rasped, but this time it seemed... malicious. "I have no desire to wait, nor do I have any need to talk to you. I simply require that you die."

And then he saw the gun flash.


	3. Part II: Honor of the Regiment

**_REALITY FLUX: ARMORED CORE AND BOLO_**

By

Gregory P. Wong

* * *

**Part Two: Honor of the Regiment

* * *

**

Keira Sanchez was waiting to wake up from this dream.

A ninety-meter, 28,000-ton, _sentient_ tank that had traveled across time, space, and universes to Earth? She didn't want to believe it.

Then again, she hadn't wanted to believe that the Bolo had just stomped six Ravens into the dirt, but it was true.

What was even more frightening was how Bethany—in their universe, the humans gave _names_ to giant tanks?—calmly told them that it would have ended _faster_ than 32.12 seconds had the Bolo opted to go for hard-kills and used its main weapons. Sure, the IDs of the Ravens who had been shot up showed that none of them was rated higher than Class B—save Asmodeus, who was a mid-tier A—but even B-class Ravens were very skilled.

The machine had been pretty tight-lipped about the nature of the weapons, but she was sure that bad things would happen if it ever got around to using them. At least the Bolo had told her—quite adamantly, too, that it had no desire to harm other humans. Hell, it even acknowledged her as a superior officer, though it probably wouldn't take any real orders from her.

"Major, I have a query," the Bolo said in that eerily human voice."

"Yes?"

"Are there any underground installations within the area? I have detected seismic activity congruous with the opening of subterranean blast doors."

"Where?"

Signatures are centered in a position 147.12 kilometers from our current location. Odd. Please hold."

What was the Bolo doing now?

"Bethany, what are you...?"

"I am hacking into the surveillance satellites above me and using them to scan the area. Strange."

Hacking...? "What is it?" she asked.

"According to the scans, six 50-meter surface doors have opened. I am detecting numerous high-energy signatures."

Oh... oh God. Please don't let it be...

"Bethany, pipe the feed to me, please."

"Affirmative."

The raw data appeared on her viewscreen. There were... a _lot_ of signatures, but at least a fifth of them stood out from the rest. She compared those signatures to those known to UN database, and the signatures matched... matched... Oh Lord in Heaven.

"_Pulverizers_," she whispered.

* * *

_Major Sanchez identifies several of the energy signatures as "Pulverizers", "Nineball-Betas", and "Juggernaut-type Muscle Tracers". The other signatures are not able to be classified conclusively, but Major Sanchez is confident that the vast majority of this new force is simply Muscle Tracers._

_The satellites I have commandeered as decent, but they are not precise enough to give me an accurate count or formation configuration. I can estimate, given that Muscle Tracers are smaller than Armored Cores, that the new, unidentified force is over two thousand strong. From the capabilities that Major Sanchez has mentioned, things might prove difficult. Yet, I am a Bolo of the Line, and I can only do my duty._

"_Major," I say, "I will proceed to the north and meet the new signatures two hundred kilometers out from you. I will attempt communications, and if intentions prove to be hostile, I will alert you."_

"_Bolo... Bethany, there's over two­-_­thousand_ of them! If they do prove hostile—and I feel in my gut that they are—will you be able to disengage?"_

_I run a brief scenario. "I believe so, Major. I request, however, that your battalion take on a support role in the event of hostilities."_

"_Roger that."_

_Major Sanchez begins to snap orders to her soldiers—she is a very good leader—and the battalion responds smoothly. There is a most definite difference between them and the Ravens, even though both use the same type of fighting machine._

_I power down my battlescreens and main weapons, and shunt the energy to my internal contra-gravity generators. I lift two meters off the ground._

_In this mode I am utterly naked and nearly weaponless, but my speed is triple what I can normally achieve in road-sprint mode._

_I pick up a smattering of chatter as I engage the propulsion fields._

"_Is that tank fisking _floating_?"_

"_It's so fast!"_

"_How'd it do—"_

_But then I ignore the chatter and focus on the numerous energy signatures in front of me. The closer I get, the more precise my readings get._

_I count 2,529 different energy signatures, plus-or-minus 0.019 percent.

* * *

_

So... The tank was really going to try something, eh?

"Okay, people," Keira said into the battalion channel. "I'm hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.

"_Grand Hammer_, get into optimum firing distances of your indirect weapons. Be ready to answer calls for fire.

"_Animus_, _Monolith_, _Helios_: forward positions, one-point-five kilometer spacing. Screen the artillery and support as necessary. _Helios_, take the air when you have clear skies.

"_Phantom_, get a good lookout spot and have that rifle ready to support the forward positions.

_Red Flash_, probe the advance units and try to find exploitable openings or flanking approaches.

"_Scorpion _and I will serve as reaction forces. _Scorpion_, be ready to provide close-in support for the assault teams."

Great. Now, hopefully, all this stuff would be unnecessary. The Bolo would do what it had to do, and she and her troops wouldn't have to fire any shots. She would worry about the five Ravens later. If there was a later.

"Arm weapons," she whispered.

* * *

_I power down my contra-grav generators and settle down to the caked mud. I immediately redirect power back to my shields and main batteries._

_The distance between the leading edges of these new units and Major Sanchez's forces is only 135.78 kilometers. I am one hundred kilometers closer, however, and I transmit at several different frequencies to what I presume to be the leader of the army, a blood red, floating Nineball-Beta. There are many other Nineball-Betas, but this one is leading the other units by a good six hundred meters._

"_This is Unit 7195-BTN, requesting contact._

_There is a pause of only 0.002 seconds before something answers me. Astounding. I had not detected biological traces in the vicinity of the army, so I assumed they were machine-controlled. As it turns out, the units are directed by artificial intelligences that run at sub-second speeds. They are, I suspect, inferior to my own nanosecond reflexes. But they are still faster than a human._

"_This is Human Organism-Destroyer Intelligence Network, HODIN. Identify yourself. Our records do not contain information on you." a monotonous, strangely belligerent electronic "voice" replies._

_I am wary of giving too much information, including as to how I believe I ended up in this world. In truth, I am under no obligation to answer any of this AI's questions._

"_You have appeared with a machine army numbering approximately 2,529 units, and you are on a vector that will take you to a cluster of human colonies if you do no alter course. You are the one who should be providing identification, not I," I challenge._

"_Humans have been detected," HODIN drones. "Nearest human settlement is 504.67 kilometers to the south. IBIS Directive 84.3 dictates that I reach the human settlements."_

"_What is your prime directive?" I inquire._

"_I was created to exterminate the human plague that has been wracking this planet."

* * *

_

"Major, an AI controls the army. It designates itself 'HODIN.'"

Keira frowned. An AI? How long had it been down there?

"Bethany, do you—"

"Major, HODIN is hostile. I repeat: HODIN is hostile."

"Bethany! Fall back!"

"Negative," the Bolo said.

And then she saw a blinding flash from somewhere to the north.

* * *

"_I cannot allow the extermination of humans," I say._

"_What you desire has no bearing on the Directive," HODIN retorts. "Simply move aside."_

"_I could no more neglect my duties than I could kill humans myself," I reply._

"_You do not have to partake in the fulfillment of Directive 84.3. Simply stand aside, and you will be left alone."_

"_I will not."_

"_Move aside or be terminated."_

"_I will not."_

"_So be it."_

_Even before HODIN had gotten around to threatening me, I had already advised Major Sanchez to the situation. The conversation between me and this strange AI has only gone on for 0.005 seconds, and by 0.00025 seconds, I was already preparing._

_I detect an energy surge in the lead Nineball-Beta._

_I noticed it in time, however, and I am already bringing my weapon systems to full readiness. Without the need to withhold main battery fire, I lock my forward 200cm Hellbore on the enemy mechanoid's center-of-mass._

_A bare 0.003 seconds after that, I feel the brush of enemy targeting arrays. I slap the touch away with ECM, and fire my forward main Hellbore._

_In the breech of my weapon, a steel-jacketed needle of cryohydrogen is accelerated to relativistic velocities by powerful electromagnets. The acceleration is sufficient to induce nuclear fusion in the hydrogen atoms. The electromagnets in the barrel of my gun herd the plasma along the bore, while several 1-gigawatt targeting lasers fire, tunneling a temporary vacuum in the air, which prevents plasma bloom._

_The bolt of a star's heart, with the energy equivalent of a five-megaton nuclear explosive, leaves the two-meter-wide muzzle of my forward main Hellbore at nearly eighty-percent lightspeed._

_The Hellbore blast hammers into the Nineball-Beta and rips it to glowing, white-hot shreds. My rear Hellbore locks on to a humanoid Pulverizer and blows it to atoms with another burst of hellfire._

_I am granted three seconds to plot new targeting solutions as my main Hellbores cycle._

_As the enemy mechanoid vaporizes, I snap open my forty VLS missile silos and fire heavy volleys of dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) missiles towards the enemy army._

_My 40cm BL mortars also thunder, raining down high explosive shells down on the advancing machine army. Though the projectiles have almost no guidance—they are dumb iron bombs—I can tailor the binary propellant inserted into each tube prior to firing, allowing me to attain a 1.25-meter targeting radius, even if I were moving at full speed._

_I add the power of my 20cm infinite repeaters—which are thermonuclear-plasma Hellbores, just like my main guns—to the swath of destruction I am cutting into the HODIN front ranks._

_But even as the missiles and mortars prepare to descend form their apogees, I fire my main Hellbores again, incinerating a heavy, four-legged Muscle Tracer and a quad-legged Pulverizer. My missile and mortar volleys impact, and I stiffen the barrage with the roar of my infinite repeaters._

_However, I again must wait three seconds for my main guns to be made ready._

_Three seconds is an eternity to a Bolo.

* * *

_

Keira was very, _very_ happy that the Bolo-tank was on their side. Because if it hadn't, all her troops would have died in under ten seconds.

Those two utterly ridiculously powerful main energy cannons were firing much too fast, each bolt of white fire obliterating an enemy unit.

No matter what the unit was. She'd never heard of _anything_ that could kill a Pulverizers or Nineball-Betas that quickly, save nuclear explosives.

That was a very scary thought.

She linked to the Bolo. "Bethany? Is there any way you could pipe intelligence to us? We're moving into support positions, but we're doing it blind."

"Affirmative, Major. I will launch five Battlefield Intelligence and Surveillance Transmissions missiles, which should provide sufficient targeting, tactical, and geographic data. Firing now."

She boosted her optical sensors to the max. Ah, there they were. Off in the distance five missiles, trailing exhaust, clawed their way upwards, exploding high up in the sky. The surveillance missiles. If the Bolos support abilities were as advanced as its fighting ones, these things would make the Spyeye drones look like... spyglasses.

"Major, I am patching in feed... now," she heard Bethany say.

And suddenly, she didn't need radar anymore. Those drones the Bolo had spread across the sky were ten times better! Not only was there positional data, but visual, infrared, electromagnetic, you name it!

But... the data that the Bolo was routing to her... oh, God.

The swarm was too big, too _dense_, for even that Bolo to take on successfully. She was stupefied by how efficiently and quickly the Bolo dispatched units as powerful as Juggernaut MTs and Pulverizers, but she cold see that it was taking hits, too.

Bad hits.

And as fast as the tank was, and as far reaching as it weapons were, they couldn't contain everything. MTs, the smaller and nimbler ones, were slipping past while the heavier Pulverizers, Juggernauts, and Nineball-Betas engaged the Bolo.

Well...

"_Grand Hammer_, fire mission," she whispered.

"Standing by," she heard Lieutenant Nathan Wilkes say.

"Units detected, radial six-zero. Indirect fire, observed."

"Roger," the Mobile Fire Support specialist grunted.

And then, from behind, she heard a deafening explosion. A dark object arced overheard as _Grand Hammer_ fired a single round from its 127cm grenade cannon.

A few seconds later, a patch of dusty earth exploded.

"Call it in," she heard Wilkes say.

"Correct for eighty meters north," Lieutenant Joanna Nikambuto stated.

"Affirmative, eight-zero meters." This from Wade Gurney.

Okay. That meant the shell had fallen a little short of the middle of the oncoming machine army. "_Grand Hammer_, advance seven hundred-fifty meters" she ordered. "Begin rolling barrage, all weapons hot. Fire for effect."

"Roger, firing for effect confirmed," replied Wilkes.

And suddenly the air filed with metal as _Grand Hammer_ let loose with cannon, howitzer, and missiles.

"Assault elements, begin advance, five hundred meters. No booster. Fire as you bear.

"_Scorpion_, begin secondary barrage with VLS missile packs.

"_Phantom_, observe and engage targets of opportunity.

"_Red Flash_, slew east and find viable locations for enfilading fire."

There was a chorus of affirmatives.

Here they went...

* * *

_A part of my mind notes the fire support I am receiving, even as the vast majority of my consciousness deals with evading fire, shooting down incoming missiles, and firing my titanic array of weaponry._

_Most of the incoming indirect fire I backtrack to Armored Core _Grand Hammer_, the tank-treaded unit. It is keeping up sustained, massive volleys from its 127cm cannon and VLS missile system, strengthening the barrage with rounds from a 425mm howitzer and auxiliary missiles. Though its missiles volume is much lighter than my own,_ Grand Hammer_'s howitzer and grenade cannons are a heavier bore than my banks of 40cm mortars. Unit _Scorpion_ adds its own might as high explosive missiles snarl into the oncoming tide of robots._

Phantom_, the sniper, is firing RASFAT shells from over twenty kilometers away, and each shell drives a self-forging jet of intense flame into the machines' interior, roasting their circuits and inner works. I am impressed with the accuracy of Lieutenant Tobakimi, with each of his shots scoring a hard kill on an enemy unit._

_The fast response unit, the hovering Armored Core _Red Flash_, is speeding off into the east. As it does so, it launches volleys of missiles at HODIN's forces. While the missiles are smaller and the volleys lighter, _Red Flash_ is forcing the enemy to split his attention._

_The other units, _MonolithAnimus_, and _Helios_, with _Nike_ in a close-support configuration, probe northward with their targeting radar. While woefully short compared to my own locks, the Armored Cores sport a 76.14 range advantage over the Muscle Tracers of HODIN. The targeting systems of the Nineball-Betas, Juggernaut MTs, and Pulverizers are nearly equal, though._

_The analysis has taken me a bare 0.00039 seconds._

_I am an island as I draw the enemy's weapons upon myself. My battlescreens are holding, but just barely at 23.409. Luckily, the dual-ply nature of my shields ensures that kinetic energy weapons, like the autocannons and heavy cannons, are much less effective than energy-based weapons. There are still enough projectile weapons to alarm me, though._

_My after turret slews right and smites down a Nineball-Beta, while my forward Hellbore eliminates a trio of laser- and missile-armed Muscle Tracers with digitigrade legs. My secondary batteries also open up, and the twelve lesser Hellbores reduce swarms of MTs to glowing shards._

_My siege weaponry has not been silent, and 40cm mortars and missiles engage, raining down death-laden metal around the heads of the enemy. DPICM munitions detonate with the familiar _crackcrackcrack_ of bomblets, while my airburst mortar rounds explode above the enemy, shredding them with razor-tipped shrapnel. I mix in fuel-air explosives with the barrage, and enemy robots are scorched by intense flame or ripped apart by near-nuclear shockwaves._

_So thick is the crush of mechanicals that even my 50mm gauss guns, point-defense lasers, and 155mm railguns are active. Though my tertiary and anti-personnel batteries are weak by the standards of my Hellbores, they are quite effective in a world of this technology base. Even as I think of this, my gauss guns devour a mob of miniscule, floating, energy-armed Muscle Tracers._

_Even my twenty-eight thousand bulk is a lethal weapon as eight sets of five-meter wide, five-meter high treads smash aside and grind slow-moving opponents to wreckage._

_But this exchange is far from one-sided._

_The weapons that these machines field against me are mediocre, at best, and completely ineffective at worst. The problem is that there are hundreds of them._

_One of the Nineball-Betas deploys its heavy particle cannon from its chest. I swivel my Number One and Two infinite repeaters to sight it, and the HODIN unit and I open fire within 0.00045 seconds of each other. The bolt of energized particles strikes me, taxing my battlescreens, even as twin spears of hellfire vaporize the Nineball-Beta._

_A massive volley of missiles races towards me, and I repurpose my gauss guns and 25-megawatt lasers to point-defense. My guns kill half of the missiles, while my ECM and evasion patterns cause misses among half of the remainders._

_Which means no less than 83 missiles survive to batter themselves against my body._

_They are low-yield conventional warheads, but they serve to further degrade my energy screens. Shields are barely holding at 11.79. Even as I carve a massive swath through the enemy army—I have 717 confirmed hard-kills in the first ten minutes—I calculate that with the enemy will overwhelm me with sheer weight of numbers. Within those five minutes, my battlescreens have been breeched three times, and portions of my armor have melted or boiled away._

_I detect energy buildup to the right._

_I will not be able to dodge in time.

* * *

_

"Contact! Engaging!" Keira heard Gurney snarl into the communications net.

There was a shower of pink arrows on the radar display as the symbol for AC _Helios_ engaged missile packs, sending a dozen homing missiles at the AI-controlled mechs. Through the BIST cloud Bethany had deployed, she watched two assault MTs stagger as the missiles struck home.

"Contact! Engaging!" Hanson and Nikambuto said simultaneously.

She watched more missiles leap away.

"_Grand Hammer_! Fire shift! Repurpose to radial one-oh-five!"

"Roger! Shifting fire to radial one-oh-five!" Wilkes called back.

Patches of baked mud—mixed rather nicely with the wrecked hulks of artillery-killed MTs—began to explode, and she watched _Animus_, with the reprieve granted by _Grand Hammer_, shift fire to take the enemies attacking _Monolith_ in the flank. The 50mm high-velocity rifle chewed up MTs with armor-piercing rounds.

_Monolith_ crouched behind its shield, raking the oncoming MTs—ugh, there were plenty of bazooka armed heavies mixed in with the rife-armed assault types—with machine gun bursts. If her XO had been true to form, the powerful 95mm machine gun had an alternating munitions cycle, meaning that the first two rounds were armor-piercing, the next two high explosive, and the fifth and six incendiaries, commonly called tracers. The aim of that—so Hanson had said—was to "poke holes in 'em, blow the holes open, and light 'em up."

It was something she hadn't heard of before, but it looked like it worked like a charm.

One of the heavy battle MTs slumped over as _Monolith_'s machine gun ripped its torso to shreds, and an assault MT exploded spectacularly. Looked like the whole "light 'em on fire" deal had paid off. Looked good.

Well, looked good except for the fact that there were several dozen _more_.

Fisk.

* * *

_Pain. A trio of heavy plasma bolts rip away the battlescreens on my starboard flank, and enemy weapons begin to strike naked metal. Endurachrome is an extremely hardy plating, but even it will begin to crumble given enough munitions._

_There is a shift in movement, and enemy units along my right side cease their evasive maneuvers and come charging at me. I accelerate and wheel away, but I detect that HODIN's units are seeking to capitalize on the breech in my defenses. I will require another 12.23 seconds before my overloaded starboard battlescreens can be energized again. My infinite repeaters obliterate units rolling in on my flank, yet the crush of metal is slowing pushing closer._

_A quintet of humanoid Pulverizers charge at me, their glowing, bladed arms waving malevolently, and I take them under fire with my forward primary Hellbore and starboard infinite repeaters. Even as I eliminate four of them, the last, shielded by its comrades and clouds of dust that have been kicked up, weaves through my point-defense fire and leaps onto my hull._

_The Pulverizer begins to hack away at my infinite repeater turrets with its blades. I rapid analysis of the arms themselves reveal the blades to be made of some type of incredibly hard crystalline substance, monomolecular sharp, and energized with pulses of electrons. The technology required to make this would have to be advanced!_

_Even as I digest and file away this piece of data I train my gauss guns on the slashing mechanoid and open fire, hundreds of high explosive slugs ripping it to pieces._

_However, it survived long enough to wreck my Number Eight infinite repeater, reducing my secondary battery effectiveness by 8.3 percent._

_The Pulverizers and Nineball-Betas are extremely fast, and I have to exercise greater caution when they close in at such ranges. I had underestimated the effectiveness of those blades._

_My starboard battlescreens engage again, and my energy sheath protects the metal of my body. My guns roar, and dozens more enemy robots are eliminated._

_Yet, despite my best efforts, a significant number have leaked past me, and are moving to engage Major Sanchez.

* * *

_

"_Scorpion_," Keira said into the comm. "Move to reinforce _Animus_." Nikambuto had found herself a target-rich environment... meaning the lieutenant was close to getting surrounded.

"Roger, moving into support position," Garab said crisply. She watched the heavy quad barrel forward on howling thrusters as its integral arm-guns chattered. Even as its machine guns roared, _Scorpion_ deployed Exceed Orbit auxiliary energy guns and its railgun mount.

The 106mm explosive penetrators ripped chunks out of the MT bodies, while the EOs spat coherent energy from their hovering positions. Every time _Scorpion_'s railgun thundered, a magnetically accelerated spike of steel-sheathed depleted uranium ripped out at Mach 10, literally crushing anything hit by it... if it didn't simply blow through.

Well, _Scorpion_ wasn't the "close-in support" unit for nothing.

"_Scorpion_, shift to take _Helios_' position; refuse the right flank. Gurney, get into the air. I'm moving to support _Monolith_."

A chorus of affirmatives.

"_Monolith_, deploy laser cannon. I'll cover you," she barked.

"Roger," replied Hanson.

She fed full power to her thrusters and moved into position in front of the heavy AC. Her targeting reticules snapped online.

Time to boogey.

Whereas _Monolith_ was a heavy unit mounting an even heavier shield, her dear old _Nike_—named after the goddess of victory—was a medium, and closer to the lighter end of the spectrum at that. She had to rely on her speed and skills to avoid damage, since she couldn't soak up a fraction of what _Monolith_ could take.

The trade off, though, was that in place of more armor plating, she packed some pretty heavy weaponry. She had a heavy laser rifle—technically, it was a lased ion-bolt rifle, but the catchier "laser rifle" name had stuck—missiles, a 75mm machine gun, and a light, 2.75-gigawatt plasma cannon. If she chose to ditch her machine gun, she could deploy her energy blade.

Plus she was a soldier, not a _Raven_, and she wouldn't be fighting these bastards alone.

For the most part, the mercenary Ravens could defeat a United Nations Mechanized Strike AC unit in single combat. For the most part. But if you took a group of UNMS Armored Cores and an equal number of Raven-piloted ones, it wouldn't be pretty for the Ravens. Not pretty, as in the Raven's would get their tails beat so fast it would flat out amaze them.

She targeted one of the bazooka-wielding heavy MTs and blasted a bolt of coherent blue energy at it. The laser-energized protons slashed deep into the MT's torso, and it collapsed, belching smoke. Left! Her machine gun raked a pair of assault MTs, and one of them crumpled, but its companion boosted towards her, its arm-mounted energy blade shimmering. Oh, goody, it wanted a blade fight. Either she dropped her machine gun or that MT would rip her a new one. There was no—

A light briefly winked on her comm board. Ah.

A pulse of energy from _Monolith_'s Exceed Orbital cannons washed away the oncoming Muscle Tracer. Soldiers watched each other's backs.

She looked at the chronometer. Hmm, about four seconds had passed, which meant...

"Heads up," she heard Hanson growl into the comm. "The Big Stick's ready."

"Fire as you bear," she called.

"Roger."

And then she heard _Monolith_'s 8-gigawatt laser roar, and the very atoms in the laser beam's path split into ions as the intense energy ripped them apart. The laser beam itself was invisible, and only during night or when there was a lot of particulate matter could the beam be "seen." On the other hand, the lightshow that occurred when the forcibly separated atomic particles reunited was rather spectacular.

The visual signs didn't matter, of course, as the laser beam slammed into a quartet of advancing heavies. The touch of the energy cannon literally transformed the lead MT into a bomb as the power blew it open and converted the shrapnel of its body into _white_-_hot_ shrapnel. So powerful the energy was that some of the atmosphere around the target MT exploded in an expanding sphere of crackling, stripped electrons. The secondary effects of the laser cannon crumpled the three MTs to either side of the target.

Wasn't called the "Big Stick" for nothing.

"Take those positions and use the hulks for cover," she snapped into the comm. "_Grand Hammer_, plow the road. _Helios_, knock their heads."

Explosions marched along the line of rapidly advancing MTs as _Grand Hammer_ splattered them with barrages of indirect fire. Fire rained down from the sky as the airborne _Helios_ slashed into the MT army with rifle, energy pulses, and missiles.

She ignited her thrusters and moved forward, firing as she advanced.

* * *

_This is difficult._

_My battlescreens have collapsed again, and already the concentrated fire from a Nineball-Beta's arm cannons have boiled away a half-meter-deep crater in my flank armor. My Numbers One and Five infinite repeaters have also been disabled._

_I have another 246 confirmed enemy kills, yet I am paying an unsatisfactory price for those. I would be most effective if I broke the engagement and took on HODIN's forces without them enveloping me, but I am the only thing preventing the robotic swarm from charging towards Major Sanchez, her command, and the cities to the south._

_My sensors note that unit _Phantom_ has moved in closer and is projecting fire deep into the swarm. Lieutenant Nobakimi is playing a dangerous game, as his unit is very lightly armored and badly equipped for a close engagement._

_Yet I cannot deny the effectiveness of his fire. The RASFAT munitions continue to tear into enemy MTs that are engaging me, providing me with openings._

_I lash out with my main guns, tearing a massive, airborne MT to burning wreckage. An alarming number of these floating fortresses have made their appearances, though I have had made short work of most of them. Perhaps..._

_I attempt a hack into one of the flying behemoths that is advancing on me, seeking me with cannon fire, energy blasts, and swarms of fast missiles. I enter, only to be beaten off by HODIN itself 0.0005 seconds later._

_However, in that fraction of a fraction of a second, I was able to break into its maintenance records and steal some design schematics._

_I see a weakness that I and my allies can capitalize on. I open a channel to Lieutenant Tobakimi._

"_Lieutenant Tobakimi, this is Bethany."_

"_Yeah, I'm here," the Armored Core pilot transmits back to me._

"_I have detected a weakness you can exploit in the massive, aerial MTs."_

"_What?"_

_I transmit a magnified view of the salient area. "The capacitor the MT uses to power its large energy cannon is located on an armored deck in the aft region of the unit. It is plated with two meters of titanium, as its power busses and cables lead directly to a secondary powerplant."_

"_Okay."_

"_If penetrating fire can disrupt the capacitor, overloaded busses will bleed back power into the fusion reactor, which will lead to a collapse of the magnetic bottle and cause catastrophic damage to the inner works of the Muscle Tracer."_

"_So my target is a circle five meters in diameter... on a flying MT that's shooting back at me and probably masses over a couple thousand tons?" I hear a coloring of disbelief in the lieutenant's voice._

"_Yes. Also, you must hit the target at a thirty to forty-two degree angle in order to hit the capacitor."_

_There is silence for 5.91 seconds. "Ah, hell. Tough shot. Oh, well, it's a challenge. Stand by."_

_I blaze away at my foes for 4.91seconds before I detect _Phantom_ open fire on the nearest flying MT. I note the plastic sabots dropping away, and ascertain that Lieutenant Nobakimi is using HIDSFSLRP rounds for maximum penetration._

Phantom_ fires another three slugs. I swing sensors to focus on the targeted aerial fortress. Nothing._

_Wait._

_My sensors detect that the massive MT has begun to lose power! 3.2 seconds later, there is a massive explosion that engulfs almost the last third of the enemy unit. _Phantom_ had hit the capacitor optimally._

_I am proud to serve with such skilled individuals._

_Even as the wreckage plummets from the sky, I train my infinite repeaters on a group of four-legged, cannon-armed MTs that are attempting to get in close. Pulses of plasma fire vaporize them as my main Hellbores smite down a massive aerial Muscle Tracer that had been following the one Lieutenant Nobakimi had shot down._

_The Lieutenant is continuing a sustained barrage with his sniper cannon, and smaller, birdlike MTs tumble from the sky._

_Battlescreen breech._

_Energy washes over naked metal, and I feel endurachrome plating boil away. I note an alarming, meter-deep hole in my frontal glacis plate... which is the heaviest armored area. My Number Twelve infinite repeater locks up; diagnostics discover that high heat has actually welded the turret to its rotating collar and cracked the barrel._

_At the rate of damage I am taking, I will be rendered inoperable before I can eliminate even a large fraction of HODIN's forces._

_I accelerate and swerve, attempting to throw off the aim of the enemy. I have some moderate success, but the volume is so heavy I can only shed a fraction of what is being thrown at me._

_This is not good.

* * *

_

This wasn't good, not good at _all_.

"Plating down to thirty-percent on my forward region," Keira heard Garab shout. "And hull temperature is skyrocketing. I need to break contact."

"Fall back to a support position, _Scorpion_. _Helios_, fill in the gap!"

"Roger!"

She ducked behind a burned-out assault MT as high explosives gouged out holes in the dirt.

Dammit.

She activated her Overboost afterburner and burned to the right for a fraction of a second before she shut if off. The microboost threw off the MT's aim as bazooka and rifle fire tore at the air where she _would_ have been. Her laser rifle thrummed, and one of the assault units collapsed. Feeding power to her normal thrusters, she began evasive maneuvers as a four-legged MT bristling with cannons closed in. She stitched its body with her machine gun while she deployed her missile launcher. She painted the assault and heavy MT with her radar.

Wait for it... wait for it...

There was a chime. Lock!

Missiles leaped away from her shoulder launcher and crashed into the two MTs. More wreckage.

This fighting was hell. The superior firepower and coordination of her soldiers was keeping the swarms of MTs from reaching them, but just barely. Soon the MTs would be able to close in to blade range, and then their firepower would mean squat then.

She hunkered behind the freshly-killed hulks. Where were those two siege cruisers? It had been over eighty minutes hours since she had requested the backup...

Dammit.

She eased out behind the wreckage and slashed more MTs apart with ion-bolt fire.

"Crap, my left leg took a bad hit," she heard Nikambuto hiss. "Stability's shot. I need to fall back!"

Damn, damn, damn. "_Animus_, fall back through corridor Delta-Seven. _Monolith_ and I will provide covering fire.

"Roger!"

She watched _Monolith_, crouching behind its shield, jet forward, firing long bursts from its machine gun.

"I'm moving in to provide close-in enfilading fire," she heard _Red Flash_'s Yeung pipe. "Things might be getting rough in a while, since the group of MTs I've been leading around in circles made up their minds to come here."

"Acknowledged," she replied.

Energy pulses and rockets tore into the right flank of the MTs.

_BAM_!

Ahhh!

She shook her heard to clear the stars from her vision. What in... ah, fisk. One of the four-legs had managed to get in close to nail her with a howitzer. The reactive plates defeated most of the force, but it still sheared armor from _Nike_'s torso.

"Got 'im," she heard Nikambuto growl, and rifle fire tore the MT apart.

_Animus_ skimmed past her. Now it was her, _Monolith_, and _Helios_ on the front lines, with _Red Flash_, _Scorpion_, and _Animus_ providing close support. Damn, and they'd barely killed a two hundred of the MTs! Where the _fisk_ was her backup!?

Suddenly, the long-range comm chimed. Wow, talk about wishes...

"Mike-Sierra-Eight-Three-Bravo-Tango, standing by."

"Major Sanchez," she heard a tense female voice grind over the comm, "this is Captain Miller aboard the _Lancaster_. _Myrmidon_ and I encountered—" she heard a sharp explosion sound somewhere in the background. She heard the captain bawl something to the Damage Control officer. "We've encountered a heavy space-based MT forces." Another explosion, and curses. "We're attempting to break through to support your battalion, but it doesn't look good. If we were assault cruisers, or battleships, we could brush them aside. But we're armed for ground assault, not space combat!"

She cursed. How the hell had HODIN gotten into space?

"Ma'am," she asked. "Where did they come from?"

"I'm not sure, Major. We detected them on vectors from the dark side of the Moon. Other than that, I'm not sure."

Dammit! _Dammit_!

"Captain, be advised that we _cannot_ hold the ground-based MTs here. They're heading for civilian population centers to the south."

"Understood, Major, but we can't do diddly up here. We're barely holding as it is, and we're pulling a holding act—"

"Captain, proceed to your attack run," she heard a familiar voice invade the channel. Bethany? The hell?

"Who the hell is this?" she heard Captain Miller snap.

"Ma'am, this is not important right now. Please proceed to your attack runs."

"Unknown unit, in case you have not noticed, the tac-sit won't allow me to move to engage planetary targets!"

"I can take care of that, Captain. Vector to 1985-2093-204 orbital. I will clear a path."

* * *

_A brief backtrack of the communications logs indicated that the ships that I detect above me are reinforcing units that Major Sanchez had requested to contain me._

_Most fortunate._

_The volume of my fire will drop of drastically in the next few minutes, but I calculate that the benefits will be far greater than the damage that might come when I redirect my efforts._

_The hacked satellites and my BIST drones scan the units that are attacking _UNFS Lancaster_ and _Myrmidon_. They look to be to be light gunboat-type ships, about a third the mass of the Concordiat _Dragon's Tooth_-class transports, though these ships are built for war. They cannot have the mass to generate shields to block Hellbores. There are four-dozen of them._

_I calculate firing solutions and begin to power up my plasma-flux Hellrails._

_I have locks. I swing my weapons towards the heavens.

* * *

_

Keira's _Nike_ boosted backwards and fired the last dozen rounds in the 75mm machine gun. She dropped the depleted weapon. Time for some blade work, eh?

What was Bethany playing at? The siege cruisers were thousands of kilometers above them! Even that Bolo couldn't—

And then she saw a white energy bolt spear into the darkening sky.

* * *

_I am a Planetary Interdictor Unit. Unlike my comrades, the Mark XXXIII Planetary Siege Units, my abilities are supposed to be used to deny enemy ships orbital superiority... even before they reached orbit. I have a chance to be used in the way I was designed to._

_My 200cm go into maximum cyclic fire, accompanied by the bellow of my Hellrails. None of those Muscle Tracers can take more than two pulses from my Hellbores, and my Hellrails literally atomize groups of enemies as the ninety-megaton bolts rip them to shreds._

_But I am paying a price to provide this cover._

_Without the thunder of my 200cm Hellbores, enemies have been closing in. I lash out with all I have, but it is not enough. Lasers scorch my armor, solid shells burst on my body, and plasma explodes against spluttering battlescreens. When will Captain Miller begin the attack run?

* * *

_

"Hold out for a few more moments, Major!" Keira heard the tensed voice of the captain boom into her comm. "Whatever miracle you just cooked up, it's working! We have a free run!"

Who would've believed. Not only was it large, smart, and heavily armed, it was so heavily armed it could knock things down in _space_!

But she could see through the BIST input that Bethany was taking a pounding to give those siege cruisers an open lane. That Bolo knew that the siege cruisers had the firepower to obliterate HODIN's ground forces... and was willing to allow her own destruction in order for that to happen.

Hell no.

"Battalion," she snarled, calling up the battalion channel. "we're on the move to relieve the Bolo. _Phantom_, fall back and give surgical fire. _Grand Hammer_, airburst rounds at—"

"Major, be advised!" she heard Captain Miller call into the comm. "We are beginning our attack runs! Hold what you got and keep your heads down!"

"Oh, God," she whispered.

Bethany was sitting at ground zero.

* * *

_I have taken grievous damage. My forward track sets are mangled wrecks, while a total of seven infinite repeaters have been disabled. My hull reads over eight serious breaches in my endurachrome armor, with two of those actually melting _past_ my plating and scorching my flintsteel warhull. In scores of other places, molten endurachrome drips down my hull like tears. The pain is intense._

_I cannot keep this up, yet I cannot turn to defend myself. Captain Miller and the two ships are the only things that can stop HODIN's drones. Without my supporting fire, the space-based Muscle Tracers will overwhelm the UNF ships._

_Launch detected!_

_I sense high-velocity projectiles leap away from the ships and plummet towards the ground around. With their current acceleration, I predict that the first wave will impact in 7.693 seconds. Gravitonic analysis put the falling, cylindrical slugs of iron at one thousand kilograms, and they are accelerating in such a fashion that velocity at time of impact will be 646.759 kilometers-per-second. Using the kinetic energy formula, I determine that any of those falling missiles will release energy in excess of a fifty-kiloton nuclear explosive._

_Bolos are designed—and have been known—to survive contact nuclear explosions, but it is not something any of us look forward to._

_But I can only fight and carry out my duty.

* * *

_

Keira watched lines of fire plummet towards the ground several kilometers ahead. If Captain Miller was taking this as seriously as she should be, those KKMs would hit with a force powerful enough to be considered nuclear.

Strong as the Bolo was, even it wouldn't be able to—

And then suddenly a place darkened by dusk lit up as bright as day.

* * *

_I have taken grievous damage. My sophisticated sensors have allowed me to dodge the actual ground zero of the KKMs, but it is a close thing, with the darkening sky, wreckage, dust, and chaos muddling my senses. A close miss—I was no more than 756.12 meters away from the impact zone— buffeted me and ripped chunks of armor from my hull._

_Yet HODIN is faring far worse. My heavier armor can absorb far more punishment, and I can make attempts at dodging because of my sensor suite. HODIN's drones have neither._

_Over eighty percent of the attacking army is so much blasted wreckage, but that leaves approximately three hundred machines left, and the tougher armor of the Juggernaut-type MTs, Nineball-Betas, and Pulverizers let them survive much of the nuclear holocaust that is ripping apart the ground around me._

_The roiling wall of white kinetic fire has driven them back, and I have a moment's reprieve to assess my damage._

_Armor integrity is down to 34.67, and my internal disrupter shields and battlescreens are experiencing power fluxes that make their performance sporadic at best. Only five infinite repeaters remain, and my forward 200cm Hellbore is completely disabled. My missile and mortar stores are down to 18.5—I lost a significant amount of ammunition when penetrating fire struck my internal magazines and set off the rounds; luckily, my internal shields and blast-venting ports kept damage to a minimum—while my tertiary armaments are down to 29.61 nominal. My mobility is extremely hampered, but I have made the best of it and blown my wrecked forward tracks clear._

_I am hurt, hurt badly, but I survive. And as long as I survive, I will continue to carry out my duties. A Bolo—_

_Alert! A kinetic projectile, masked by the electronic, visual, and thermal chaos around me, is closing in on my hull! I will not be able to dodge this—

* * *

_

"Dear God," Keira whispered. The "nuclear" bombardment the pair of _Omaha_s had unleashed had ripped up craters _all over_ the damned plain. The sun was down, but the glow of burning earth gave enough light for even unassisted visual sensors to see by.

God damn, _this_ is what two siege cruisers could do to a space less than fifty square kilometers. God _damn_.

She wasn't getting any signal returns from Bethany, and the BIST drones and satellites were getting nothing but static from all the crap floating around after an orbital kinetic bombardment. From the look of what she _could_ see, nothing could have survived that barrage.

Including a tank as big and heavily armored as the Bolo.

"Major?" she heard Captain Miller say. "We've completed out attack run, but we burned quite a bit of reactor mass fighting through those space MTs, plus both _Trafalgar_ and _Myrmidon_ have taken some significant damage. We're doing our all to keep from falling into the atmosphere. We need to get to a repair station, ASAP."

"I copy, Captain. We'll handle the sweep."

"Roger, Major. Be advised that Ground Strike has deployed the 607th and 371st Brigades to assist. Take care."

And then the comm clicked off.

She sighed. "_Phantom_, keep a watch until the sensors stabilize. We'll move in once the BIST network has a clear view."

"Roger that."

She took a breath and tried to let some of the adrenaline out.

"_Monolith_, how are the drones holding up?"

"Ma'am, they've gone offline. I think—" she heard Hanson inhale "I think since the Bolo went offline, they shut down and locked us out. We're relying on our AC sensors, Major."

_Crap_. "Roger. Flash check."

"_Monolith_. Active. Full mobility, thirty-seven percent munitions, hull nominal, armoring at sixty-nine percent."

"_Red Flash_ is active, full mobility. Sixty-seven ammunition, hull nominal, AP forty-seven."

"_Animus_ here. My left leg's mangled, and I've fifty-three percent mobility rate. Armor and ammunition is over fifty percent. Hull sealed."

_Grand Hammer_ has full mobility, hull integrity, and armor levels. Munitions at twenty-five, though."

"_Scorpion_, active, full mobility. Hull integrity nominal, but my frontal armor is really ripped up. Ammo is thirty-two percent."

"_Helios_ here. I'm... pretty beat up. Mobility and armor both below thirty-five percent, and I have a hull breach in my waist. Ammo at... looks like forty-three."

"_Phantom_ is active with full mobility. Armor was chipped down to eighty-eight nominal, mostly in my frontal region, but hull is fine. Sixty-one percent ammunition."

Hmm... _Phantom_ was in relatively good shape. The sniper-configured AC was speedy and nimble, plus it had a powerful sensor suite. She'd _really_ rather send in the faster _Red Flash_, but Yeung's unit wasn't exactly in tip-top condition anymore.

Well, it wasn't like were going to be any _leftovers_...

"_Phantom_, you're on point. _Flash_, cover him. _Animus_, _Helios_, hang back with _Grand_ _Hammer_ on support. _Monolith_, _Scorpion_, tail _Red Flash_. I'll take aerial."

Choruses of affirmatives.

"Okay, execute. Sensors on max. Probably everything's been blown to hell and back, but we're not taking chances."

* * *

/Enemy/

/Enemy Detected/

/The Enemy!/

/The Enemy!/

/Continue IBIS protocol!/

/The Enemy!/

/The Enemy!/

* * *

"_CONTACT_!" Keira heard Tobakimi scream before the transmission dissolved into static.

"_NASUKE_!" she roared into the comm. "Report! _Report_, dammit!"

Static. She looked on the radar board and saw that _Phantom_'s representative blip was missing.

Fisk!

"Fall back, Charlie-Deuce formation. On my mark, begin suppressive fire. We will withdraw and attempt to contain until Ground Strike elements have deployed. Keep your—"

And then a bolt of blinding energy dug a crater right next to _Nike_.

And then her sensors cleared.

Good God...

At least thirty more of HODIN's heavy units were still functional...!

And they were coming for her battalion.

* * *

_Hzzzt.  
__Initiate Level 5 diagnostic  
__Execute...  
__pwrsys... med 33.08  
__drvtrn... crit 15 mobility  
__weapsys check... crit  
__---primarm a... crit w/ hllbor 2 dstryd, hllbor 1 dmgd  
__---primarm b... null w/ hllrals 1,2 dstryd  
__---secarm... crit w/ infrptr 1,2,4,6,7,8,10,11,12 dstryd; 3,5,9 dmgd  
__---siegarm... null w/ VLS, mortar dstryd  
__---tertarm... crit  
__dmglvl... crit  
__---batlscrns... null  
__---intdsrpt... null  
__---Class 4 breeches... 5  
__---Class 2 breeches... 6  
__---Class 1 breeches... 19  
__snsrsys... hvy dmg 11.19  
__Engage shutdown sequence  
__Move Bolo Personality into Survival Center  
__Execute Protocol 19 immediately  
__Executing...  
__Moving Bolo—  
__Abort  
__Initiate sensor sweep...  
__Enemy Detected  
__Calculate chance of mission success...  
__Probability of successful engagement: 9.71  
__Execute Protocol 19—  
__Abort  
__Activating  
__Arm weapons  
__I'm not dead yet...!

* * *

_

"I'm hit! I'm—" Keira heard Nikambuto bellow before static choked the channel.

Another AC... gone.

They were all going to die. Even with the Ground Strike brigades deploying with their MTs, armored vehicles, heavy infantry, and aircraft, they wouldn't be able to handle the thirty-one still-functional heavy units of HODIN.

Her battalion, the Ground Strike forces... Bethany... it had all been for nothing. Sure, these assorted Pulverizers and Juggernauts and Nineball-Betas would be brought down eventually, but there were going to be thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, dead.

God.

A humanoid Pulverizer, wickedly fast and missing its left arm, charged her. Both her laser rifle and machine gun were dry, and it was too close for her to blast it with her plasma cannon or missile pack. And, all around her, the remnants of her battalion were doing all they could to keep from being toasted. No help there.

Aw, hell.

With a tap to her controls, she engaged her energy blade, and boosted towards the HODIN unit. Well, it was as good a day as any to die.

She moved forward.

The Pulverizer moved forward.

And then it blew up in torrent of white fire.

* * *

_I know that I do not have long to function._

_HODIN knows this, too, and his remaining heavy units turn from their attack on Major Sanchez to deal with me. It makes sense, on a tactical level. The Armored Cores, while piloted by skilled humans and wielding potent weaponry, cannot even being to hope to counter HODIN's last, desperate thrust. With my one functional Hellbore, and three functional infinite repeaters, can deal grievous, perhaps even fatal damage, to these last._

_But just barely. I caclulate a 95.41 that I will cease to function, that I will die._

_But that means nothing._

_I boost what audio output speakers I have remaining to maximum volume. With that, I bellow the battlecry of the Bolo Combat Units._

"FOR THE HONOR OF THE REGIMENT_!"

* * *

_

By... by God.

How could it—_she_—still be functional?

Keira watched in utter awe as the ravaged, battered supertank roared into action. The other HODIN agents immediately ceased attacking her battalion in order to get a crack at the Bolo.

She watched Bethany batter away at the forces arrayed around the Bolo, and, even after a fisking nuclear barrage, it was _still_ killing the Pulverizers and Nineball-Betas.

But, hell it wasn't going to last for long. The Bolo had, what, half a dozen functional guns left. True, one of them was one of those utterly impossible main guns, but it was moving jerkily. Damaged.

Her comm pinged. Huh? It was from the Bolo tank.

"Major Sanchez," she barked into the mic.

"Major," she heard the tank's soprano say. And, even though it was a machine—wasn't it?—she could sense... pain behind that voice. "I will attempt to hold them off. I intercepted the communiqué the captain of the _Lancaster_ transmitted. Regroup with your forces and deal with any survivors."

Oh, hell. Bethany meant to _distract_ HODIN so her battalion could meet up with the Ground Strike forces.

That tank—oh, fisk it, it wasn't "just" a tank. It was a person as anyone else on her battalion. A machine didn't understand half of what honor and sacrifice were about. Hello, HODIN was a great example: cold, emotionless, and ruled by hard programming. This Bolo wasn't. It was willing to sacrifice its own existence in order to protect _utter strangers_ and _civilians_!

Armored Strike never left a man behind. And, by God, she wasn't going to be the first.

"I'm not leaving you behind," she whispered. She keyed her mic. "That's a negative! Battalion, form up on me! We're rescuing that tank... and pounding HODIN while we do it!"

* * *

_It is done. Despite my massive wounds, I am still functional. Major Sanchez's battalion is intact, though its Armored Core units range from heavily damaged to irreparable._

_HODIN had made the fatal mistake of ignoring the humans as the surviving drones closed in on me. Even low on ammunition and power, the humans had concentrated their efforts one by one. HODIN had ignored them presumably because he did not even consider them a threat. They are, after all, only human._

_Which is the fatal, utterly foolish mistake that countless enemies of mankind have made over the centuries. The Deng, the Soetti, the !!!, the Xalotese: all had their contempt for humanity... and they perished for it._

_I am gladdened to see that the heroism and skill of humanity seems to extend to other realities, as well._

_Approximately eighty-five kilometers out, my few, half-blind sensors detect incoming objects. I surmise them to be the Ground Strike forces that had been dispatched to the area. I wonder what be done for me._

_I am completely immobilized after a Nineball-Beta chest-mounted particle cannon literally overloaded my drive actuators. My weapon systems are completely disabled, save seventeen tertiary weapons._

_Incoming transmission. It is Major Sanchez._

"_Bethany?"_

"_I am here, Major. The damage is near catastrophic, but my interior psychotronic processes are operating at nominal ability."_

"_That's... that's great to hear," The major says slowly. "Listen, Bethany, I... I want to say thank you. Not only did you save all those civilians that HODIN would have massacred, but you saved my soldiers."_

_Had I, really? I was unable to save Lieutenants Nikambuto and Tobakimi._

"_Major, I was unable to prevent the deaths of two of your own."_

_There is a pause, long even for a human. "Bethany, not your fault. Nothing could have changed that. But we'd all would've been dead without you, understand."_

_Of course I understand, yet... it is still reassuring, soothing, to hear those words._

"_I do my duty, Major. No more, no less is expected of a Bolo."_

"_Of course." Another pause. "Bethany, our engineers might be able to rep—"_

_Alert!_

_My remaining sensors snap around to focus on an energy field that is slowly growing above my position. My sensors are damaged, but I can match the wavelength of the energy! Could it be that the quantum—

* * *

_

"What. Just. Happened," Keira muttered. First, almost-destroyed Bolo. Second, massive ball of fire. Third, big mother flash. Fourth... no more Bolo.

"Don't know, boss. Wasn't able to get a recording set up in time," she heard her XO sigh.

"Damn," she hissed. "Alex, see if—"

"Eighty-Third, Eighty-Third, this is Brigadier General Arthur Selbin, Commander 607th Ground Strike Brigade. Do you read me? Over."

She took a breath and tapped the mic control. "Major Sanchez, commander Eighty-Third. I read you loud and clear, General."

"Major, us and the 371st are inbound on your position, ETA fifteen." Pause. "Major, what the _hell_ went on out there?"

She hesitated. How the heck do you explain something like a Bolo? How do you explain something that had the power of an Olympic deity stuck in those cannon breeches? How do you explain that a machine of war could be as honorable and duty-bound as the general was?

Well...

"Sir, this is going to take a long time, I think..."

She silently wished Bethany good luck, wherever she was.

* * *

_I am back on Esperanza. Instantly, it would seem, as the synched chronometers seemed to have only slid forward a bare few seconds. Inconceivable. There had to have been a powerful time-dilation effect from the quantum anomaly._

"_BTN? This is JRD. I detected a quantum pulse at your position. Have you sustained damage? What happened?"_

_How do I respond to this? A transuniversal gate? Robotic overminds that had threatened a different version of Terra?_

_Humans who where the equals in honor to Bolos?_

_I can do no more than tell the truth, strange as it is. But I will be honored to bear witness to the feats humans can achieve._

_Wherever that brave major is, I wish her good luck._

"_Esperanza Defense Command," I say, "permission to file VSR."_


End file.
